


December 17: the human condition continues as such

by dizzy



Series: farewell and gtfo 2016 daily fic advent [17]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, M/M, but ANGST, no break up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8883817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: prompt: Phil is smiling bright while dan is unwrapping his present. He opens it. Unfortunately Dan seems not to be quite as happy as Phil hoped. "Wow... Phil... it's... it's a





	

Dan sits on a park bench in the rain. 

It was supposed to snow, he thinks. The weather report said a winter wonderland for the 23rd of December. 

Dan complained that the snow turned to brown mush too fast, there wouldn’t be anything wonderful about it. Phil told him he needed to find his Christmas spirit and then made him warm mulled wine. 

It was a nice day, really. 

*

He has to go back at some point. 

Phil will be waiting. 

Phil knows Dan is coming back. 

That’s the first thing Dan had done. He’d barely been out the door to the flat before he’d picked up his phone and texted to Phil, _I’m coming back._

He doesn’t want Phil to worry. 

Dan just… he needed some time. 

A few more minutes, that’s all. 

Then he’ll go home. 

*

He ducks into a coffee shop just to be able to breathe without feeling like icicles are forming in his lungs. It’s not their normal one. He doesn’t want to see a familiar face. 

He gets a tea, no sugar. It’s what his grandmother would make him. 

He wonders, for a wild brief moment, if he could just get on a train and go to her right now. He could, of course, it’s physically possible. 

But he won’t. He’ll face the outcome of his rash actions, for better or worse. That's probably what she'd tell him anyway. She'd make him something warm to eat and a cup of tea just like this and then she'd tell him how much of an idiot he's being and that he needs to get his head on straight and she'd send him right back to where he needs to be. 

Somehow, without the conversation even having taken place, it makes him feel a little better. He drinks his tea slowly, and tries to figure out what he'll say to Phil.

*

The flat is quiet. The light in the lounge is still on. 

Phil is exactly where Dan left him, except a hundred times more wrecked. 

“You came back.” Phil’s voice is absent. It hurts. Phil only sounds like that when he's trying to sound like that. 

“I said I would.” 

“Wasn’t.” Phil swallows. “Wasn’t sure.” 

“Phil.” Dan wishes he could pack every confusing, conflicting thought he has into a word, a kiss, a name. He wishes this weren’t so hard. “I _said_ I would.” 

Phil’s breath hitches as he draws it in. He’s wearing those ridiculous pajama pants from his mum that they opened that morning over breakfast. She sent them both a pair, red for Dan and green for Phil. They’ve got reindeer on with little cotton ball noses. 

It was _such_ a nice day. 

*

Sometimes the words just won’t come. Just like earlier, when he couldn't stop to explain why he was so scared, when he fled instead of answering Phil's question. 

So Dan relies on action instead. He picks the abandoned little box up from the coffee table. 

The ring is cold as he slides it on his finger. “I want to marry you. I’ve always wanted to marry you.” 

“Then why-” Phil asks. His eyes are red and his nose sounds clogged. “Why did you-” 

_Leave._ Why did he leave? 

Dan sits down on the sofa, a few feet of space between them. “It’s complicated.” 

“Tell me anyway,” Phil says. 

“I will,” Dan says. “I just don’t know if it’ll make sense.” 

“I proposed to you and you walked out of the flat, Dan.” Phil tries to laugh. It doesn’t work. “I don’t think anything you say now will be worse than that.” 

That kind of hurt in Phil’s voice feels like a weight on Dan’s chest, crushing the breath out of him. Dan would slay dragons to keep Phil from ever sounding that way. He’ll slay his own demons too, he just needs to figure out how first. 

“In my head I always thought…” Dan’s voice wobbles, and he cried for so long sitting in the rain that he thought he’d surely be out of tears but apparently he’s found more.. “In my head being engaged, being married, was something that would happen when I was - better. When I felt better. When I woke up every morning and didn’t have to convince myself to get out of bed. When I wasn’t someone who dodged every text message and left parties early. I can’t even stand a fucking holiday work party, how is a wedding supposed to sound- like something I can even do?” 

“We don’t have to have a big wedding,” Phil says. He looks painfully, terribly hurt. This is not going how Dan had hoped it might in his head. 

“No,” Dan says. “I mean, we don’t have to, but we should be able to if we want to. If you want to. It shouldn’t just be about us arranging our lives around what I can handle. And maybe I even want a big wedding. I want it to be - us. I want it to be for us to celebrate who we are. I want to come out first, and be able to call you my husband without feeling like it’s choking me. I left because it suddenly hit me that if I’m twenty five years old and nothing has magically made me a better person, being engaged won’t either. And that’s why I’m telling you that I want to marry you, but I don’t know when I’ll be able to.”

Phil rubs his hands over his face. His shoulders are shaking still, a little. “I don’t know what that means.” 

Dan is desperate to make this better, but he can’t lie to Phil. “I don’t either, really. A long engagement, I guess? While I actually figure things out. I’ll, I’ll try. I’ll work toward it. I’ll start seeing a therapist. We can start letting people in. I just - slowly. I need to go slow.” 

“I thought we _were_ working toward it,” Phil says. “I thought all of this, since October, this was us working toward it.” 

“We’re working towards something,” Dan says. “We are. We have been. I just want to make sure that when we get married I’m not taking more baggage into it than I need.” 

“You could have said that.” Phil tilts his head back against the sofa. He looks so tired. “You can’t just leave me, Dan. I don’t know what to do when you leave like that.” 

It’s shades of a fight they’ve had before. “Another thing I need to get better about,” Dan says. He wipes his eyes again. A glint of light catches his eye and he looks down. “I really love the ring.” 

Phil is too guarded to accept the compliment. “You can take it off if you want.” 

“No.” Dan will have to take it off soon - when they leave the flat, when they film. But for right now he feels fiercely protective over his right to wear it. “You proposed, I said yes. I get to wear the ring now. Those are the rules.” 

“Dan…” Phil sighs. 

“Can I hug you?” Dan asks, voice a rush because he’s afraid Phil will say no. 

“Okay.” 

Dan burrows himself against Phil, clings on tight. He’s a greedy bastard who hurts people then wants them to comfort him, and that’ll go on the list, too.

Phil stays tense for twenty seconds, thirty, forty. Then he lets out a breath and his shoulders slump and his arms go tighter around Dan. It’s a few seconds after that when Dan feels the press of a kiss to the top of his head. 

*

Phil goes to sleep first. He announces it, says to Dan he’s going to bed and by the wording Dan can tell that it’s not an invitation. 

That’s fine, if Phil needs a little time. He always does, after a fight. 

And this was a fight. Even if there were no clear sides, even if it was mostly just Dan against himself, Phil was a victim of the moment and Dan will allow him the chance to lick those wounds. 

He hears the toilet flush and footsteps. Phil stops in the doorway to the lounge and looks at Dan. The lines along his mouth seem deeper than normal. “Don’t stay up too late,” Phil says. “The bed gets cold.” 

So Dan won’t be sleeping on the sofa at least. “I won’t,” Dan says. “Turn the lights out?” 

Phil reaches out and flips the switch, then walks away without saying anything else. Dan sits in the dark with the tree still lit, watching the lights twinkle.

Outside, it finally starts to snow.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Ickle for looking over this for me!


End file.
